Dave Casotti, Boone Mayor, July 7, 2026

Join today by Dave Cassotti, our Boone Mayor, and because, well, everybody's got to be somewhere, Dave, so you're here. I'm here. It's good to be here. It's good to be here. All right. I'm going right away to the first one. Last time we said we got a couple, we got, we're after these banners. Yes. And I'm going right to the end of the thing, right? Because you left here shortly after that and literally got it done. I mean, people stepped up and sponsored the banners, able to get them up, Public Works was able to get, well, they got the brackets, they had to replace some, had to install some, got them all up and went pretty good. Thrilled. Absolutely. Yeah, we, huge, I won't spend a ton of time, but again, thank you to those that stepped forward and purchased a banner. We had more asked, but we already had the 28 committed. So we did have one other gentleman step forward and wanted to do it. But I said, well, all we got left to do is buy some brackets and he paid for part of the brackets. So I mean, the, we almost had the entire project paid for. We do have about five or six checks yet to come in, but all said and done, it didn't cost the city maybe five, six hundred dollars. So, but a huge thank you to everybody. Your goal is try to keep them up at least. You'd love, you'd love to keep them up to Veteran's Day. Right. And a lot of it will be tend just how they hold up to the weather. Yeah. And I hope they hold up. And I talked to the guy that made him at, um, and, uh, Motown, right? Yes. Yes. Motown. Sorry. And, uh, and they're made of high quality. They're, they're made to last. So, because I really want those that paid for them to get a decent banner when they're done for a keepsake. So, so, and next time we'll start earlier. Next time we'll start earlier. This brain working a little faster. Well, you know, you get the idea and then all of a sudden, but, uh, it, it came together. And I'm appreciative of everyone. Well, Boone City Council meeting last night, it was a long one. There was a lot of things talked about and, uh, a lot of public hearings. A lot. A lot. And you got to read all the lengthy, uh, resolutions. So, and if I could, can I throw something in there real quick? Just for those that attend the meetings, watch the meetings online that haven't heard or don't know. I do have an eye disease. It's not that I can't read. It's that I have a hard time seeing print. Even though it's large, they enlarge my agenda. It's hard. That's why I stammer through those. Just so everybody knows, I do know how to read. It's just, I have an eye disease. I have blind spots and that's, that's why you hear me. He's not smooth. He struggles a little. I'm not a smooth reader. So, well, let's talk about, uh, first thing up was the Boone Air Humane Society. It's been going back and forth, uh, Council. And, uh, basically the Humane Society's board has to make the determination. But, uh, at the last meeting, uh, Council said, okay, uh, they didn't want to lose any services. So they said, okay, let's go eight percent, go back to the original contract where all the services came back. They came back and said, well, we'll do emergency response 24 seven. But a lot of the other calls, they didn't want to have to go out if there was really no reason. Correct. So, uh, with Council, when they voted, it was a three three tie, which means it failed. Correct. So, and then a lot of people still think that the mayor has a tie, tie breaking vote, which I do not, or the mayor does not. So we'll have to go back to the bargaining table and see what, see what comes up and, um, what can be done if there are any other changes. Problem is, is they only have really two people that respond to calls. Correct. And short, short staff and they create some issues of being able to be, be on call all the time. Yeah. I'm confident we can work through it and we'll get it figured out. Okay. Yep. Uh, but at this point in time, still don't have a final agreement. We do not. So we did get a lengthy presentation from Aaron Voss. Aaron's with U.S. Water. Yep. Again, for those, some people think that the city sold the water plant and the sewer plant, then no, they did not. The city still owns it. Uh, they still own them, but they do contract with U.S. Water to operate these facilities. Correct. So he's giving this presentation and a lot of it had to do because of the issues we had with discolored water and things like that. Yep. And a lot of it was basically work related that was going on. It just, uh, created within the distribution system, not the water plant itself, but within the distribution system created some issues, discolored water, odor, things like that. So, and I know you got contacted a lot of the council were getting contacted. Didn't know what to say about it. So, right. And that's, so we found out last night. We found out and we did. We asked them to come and give us a, um, a presentation on it and give us an update on what happened. So we're all kind of aware now. Some of it might have gone over people's heads, just like mine on how the whole process works, but excuse me. Um, but that, and it's going to, it's, it's probably going to happen again because there's so much going on with the infrastructure. But our biggest thing last night, excuse me, losing my voice again already, um, is that we probably need better communication between U.S. Water and us so that we can get that out and let people know that this is possibly going to happen just so they can look for it and not be surprised and wonder what's going on. So, and, uh, the bottom line was not having the big reservoir in place meant they had to rely on the water towers and basically two of the three water towers because, uh, uh, Green Street was taken out of service as well. So, and that's where your, your reserves were. And then the, as the water came out of that, it goes in a different direction. All of a sudden you're scouring the lines and it gets cloudy. It's dirty. Brings things. All right. It looks up, uh, you know, it looks that way. So it does create that issue for it. And he did say that at one point, uh, what about two years ago, they had to make some adjustments in, uh, chlorine contact, which he said that may for some people that are sensitive to it could, would identify having more of a chlorine odor. Yeah. The odor and the taste and so forth. And dated by the DNR. Yeah. Yep. So, and that was only the first part of we talked about water. Right. I'm going to jump to the next part because that was following your public hearing, uh, the going to the state redevolving loan fund to make available, uh, uh, because you had the environmental information, which at the last meeting said this was coming up and basically it was about going for the next well, the alluvial well that you're going to build out there. Yep. So, uh, again, for some reason, all of a sudden now becomes a big issue for people, even though, even before you had a lot of work that was going on with it. Uh, they wanted to know about water supply and nitrates and how you're going to treat them. What's the long range plans? And, uh, again, long range is you are looking at potentially a reverse osmosis plant, which is very expensive. But yeah, there are other options that have been investigated, biological process. And I know you're just learning about a lot of those. Yeah, it's, you know, I mean, SEH and US water have been working on this. They have. And it's, and you know, people, when they're behind the scenes like that, you don't see that and don't know exactly what's going on. So we'll, they'll keep us up to date on what we're going to end up doing because we thought we're looking at things out already that we thought we were good until 2044. But with, with the new developments we have and the people coming online along with Daisy, what we thought would be 2044 is going to be sooner than that. So we've got, yeah, we've got a lot of work to do ahead of us and US water and SEH does and we'll, we'll get through that and get it figured out. And we do know they did apply. Again, one of the things that was to do well to the Jordan aquifer and the DNR rejected that. So, and then they did say, by the way, if you do a reverse osmosis plant, you have to treat your waste. So now you got to run it to your sewer plant, maybe make that bigger again. Yeah. So there's a lot of things there. Yeah. Anyway, that's just some of the work that's going on there. You did have a lot of people inquiring though about the volume of water, nitrate levels, things like that, which you're in, you're within the guidelines, right? I didn't say actually, I think Aaron Boss said in the beginning, the actual quality of the water departing the plant is probably as good as it's been in some time. Right. Yep. And that's, that's a whole, that's a tough issue. I mean, you hear nitrates. I hear nitrates. I think I don't, I want zero. I mean, I don't, but there are acceptable levels and, and they're working on that and trying to keep it down. And like you just said, it's, it's lower than it's been. It's sometimes not good enough to hear that. I mean, for some people, but it's a process and it's, it's bigger than, it's not just a boon thing. That's a, that's a statewide and I don't know how much the rest of the country as well, but it's, it's a, it's a huge challenge and issue that, you know, people are working on. Okay. Well, let's go to some of the other things that came up. We do know that the, well, had several things in the Southeast Boon Urban Renewal area. One, again, one amendment to the plan and then you had the East Central Housing Part. Part of that was also the public hearing on the Development Agreement with Hunsucker. Again, we're talking about the Irby Park Estates, which will be built North of Cap Irby Park. And they essentially even had some questions about that as well. Right. And one thing, well, there's numerous questions, but one of them that came up was about the groundwater, I don't want to say groundwater storage. That's a different thing, but the retention, retention and detention and retention. Right. Right. And right now, there is a retention pond there, but it's not a true, it's a retention pond. It doesn't drain anywhere. Yeah. But once they do the development, there will be two or three of those and they will be all connected with infrastructure and it'll slowly drain away versus just sit there like it does now. So, I mean, eventually goes away, but, but it'll be designed to do that and take that. But yeah. So, that was one thing too that just the answering one of the questions from the public. Yep. Yep. We also had what they were talking about. Well, how much is being because they already have work prepping the site going on and things like that. But they're, you know, where's the property line and stuff like that? Yes, it comes right up to the other property lines there. So, yep, no one's off of it. It'll be busy on the on the. Yeah, I was trying to think of the name of the street that's there. I said, I know it comes off of Aurora and I can't think of the east west sunrise maybe. Yeah. But anyway, it's the sun. Yeah, it might be Aldrich, but anyway, they got all of that happening. And then we did also do the public hearing on the East Gate Pump Station and Forest Main project. Not a lot of questions raised about that. That's going to be a big project that'll be coming up. It will. On the south side of town. So, we got a lot happening there. Did have a change order on the Hancock Drive extension project. It turns out Rise actually covers the big chunk of the call. The state will cover that. Yep. But it had to do with the amount of topsoil that needed to be moved and relocated. And so, wasn't quite as bad as we thought. Right. Yep. I was I was expecting worse when I saw that change order. But no, it's not going to be that bad. Okay. Yeah, I had to do a topsoil. There wasn't as much topsoil as they thought. So, let me see if we cover some of the other things. I know there was a lot of other things that came up. Let's go. We did have in the public comment time the issue of chickens, urban chickens came up and access to public records. So, a whole new thing for people that have been on the city council then may not have realized they had to have those records available. Yep. So, working on that, getting that information out. But the issue did come up a lengthy discussion towards the end about will the urban chicken issue ever go away? And no, I don't think it will. I don't think it'll ever go away. I do believe that we will put it on the next agenda probably for a vote for the for the council to vote on and and see what happens. And if it's a no again, like it was last time, I'm sure it'll come up again. I know hopefully it's not every every couple of months. Let's let's you know, take some time. But yeah, it's and I see both sides. I do. But yeah, again, you don't have a vote. And I don't have a vote. So, it's like, yeah, I just if the council wants it on there and they want to vote on it, then there seem to be a feeling among council members, let's put it on, let's vote again. Yep. And yeah, but it like,

when residents said, no, it's not going to go away. Right. Yep. They'll keep keep working on it and see what else happens. Let's talk about a couple other things. Oh, Parks Department needs some help. Yeah, over 18. That happens to be the restriction. I could find somebody that would love to go mo for him. But he's not 18. Right. That's the big thing. And I I wanted to make sure we did talk about that. So if anybody listening knows anyone that's 18 and would like, it's a part time position because it's seasonal, but it is 40 hours a week. So if you're interested apply, I believe they said public works, public works or online, there's a way to get an application to but yeah, Mike needs help out there. So the big thing is, is with the people that they do have, they ran into some of the tree damage, things they had to take care of for that, got behind on Linwood Park. Yes. So he apologetic about that. But then it rains and yep, things grow. Yes. The way we go. A lot of that happening too. Let me see. I think that was a lot of through the public hearing process, a lot of the different things you had. And we did also have Economic Development Committee had a couple of different things to talk about. We do have a couple of projects that are going to be community development block grants. So we are going to go through that process of trying to find an administrator at the when they call folks, it's an RFP request for proposal. And basically, as you're finding out, I'm guessing simmering Corey seems to do the lion's share of that work. They do. So thankfully, they will be back and more than likely will submit a proposal for this. But this is some of the upstairs apartment work that's going on downtown. Yep. Yep. And hopefully we can get that done as soon as possible and get someone in there and get those filled, get them finished and get them filled. So they did also come back or capstone did a little change in how the structure and the ownership and that for page flats and Lincoln flats and would like to redo their development agreement. And so basically, the council did give Andre Elmquist authority to go ahead and start going through the negotiating process and see what you can put together. Yep. We're looking at some sort of an abatement for and it would be a short term one, but just to help them out somewhat. So this would be, yeah, they're seeking a three year and three year abatement. They asked for 100%. There is a process to go through for things like that. But this would be for multifamily. So it creates a couple of different wrinkles you have to write in there. So bottom line is city had already agreed that they would provide them with some incentive funds. The problem is they at the time it was they were not for profit. Now they are right. So they deal do have to pay property tax. They do. Yep. And it's people that are wondering. Yes, they do. And it'll still be considered commercial property and not residential too, which is makes it a little bit different. So yeah, other things that came up. Let's see. We talked about the needing employees out at the. Okay, we also know we've got a Friday night on the green coming up and municipal band festival as well and the fair. We've got all kinds of things happening. And Raghbri is only about about two, 14 days away, two weeks away, two weeks away. Yep. And some some of the people on the committee get ready to let the over. Yes, they'll put a lot of work they put a ton of work in and I, you know, I can't imagine what all goes into it. So then they've been busy. All right. Those are just some of the things that came up last night for the council. Let's see. I know we got a couple of committee meetings that will be coming up. Bottom line is just there are a lot of different things that were talked about and again, but it's water, water supply and water coming out of the tap. Yep. This is big things. That's kind of a big one right now, which it's important. So yep, you get a lot of that happening until the meeting coming. I think we may 20th. So yeah, that'll be prior to the next council meeting and they'll have some other things that'll be going on there. And then again, mayor sets the agenda. So we'll see if you put the chickens on. We'll see what happens. Yeah. There were a couple of other odds and ends of things that are going on, but really the housing project again, got to be happy to see those going on. Yeah. And others that are being worked on as well too. So yeah, he's going. Yeah, they're just there's a lot going on, which is great. I mean, that's growth. And again, we've got a, you know, with growth come some pains and we're working through it and we'll get there. So and so many things. Yep. Anybody still ask you about first street? I haven't had anybody ask about first street. And that's it's maybe there's too much other stuff going on. You were probably as disappointed as everybody. Oh, very disappointed in that night. That's yeah, we're on air. So I can't say what, you know, I know when I first heard that I was that one gets me because I really wanted to see that get done this year, but next year and then we'll go right make sure that things don't happen again with, you know, make sure the plans get make sure the plans get into the DOT in time. Yes, and get that all done. So I did want to say it was 4th of July holidays seem things seem to go pretty well, even with the rain, few complaints, but not not anything over and above what they've dealt with previously. So now we did have a few fireworks fires. I just going to say there were a few fires that stemmed from some fireworks. So people got to be careful, which yeah, that's there were a lot of shows around town that rivaled the one that the city put on. So anyway, we had to had a pretty good pretty good weekend for that. And again, turned out to be even with all the heat and everything. It turned out to be pretty good. Yep, no rain didn't that cancel. So that was really the big part for you, right? Yep. Get that again, Boone Mayor, Dave Cassotti, our guest on our program today. Thanks for joining us. And once again, but Friday night on the green Friday night out for that and municipal band festivals on Saturday and that's most of the stuff right away and then get ready for the fair. Yeah, we'll have all kinds of things. So make sure you come out tonight's on the green. They're gonna have 250 cupcakes for the 250th birthday. So we need people to get out and eat those. So I don't have to eat them all. Okay, well, Ryan and I were curious. Ryan in particular was wondering, do you need testers to make sure they're good? I think that probably a great idea. Okay, maybe you and Ryan and I do that. We could volunteer. Thanks so much for coming in. Thank you, Jim.